


Distancing

by ivyleaguenerd



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Auston / Leon / Patrick all angy, Connor is forgiving, Dylan is apologetic, Dylan is suffering, M/M, Mentions of laced drugs, Mentions of seclusion, Mitch is only in mentions, mentions of drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyleaguenerd/pseuds/ivyleaguenerd
Summary: One night, Dylan fights off his closest friend and boyfriend out of nowhere. After months of not having any contact with one another, Dylan picks up the phone.
Relationships: Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Distancing

It had been a few months since Dylan had seen Connor. Including not having any texts from him, missed calls, seeing his face, hearing his voice, all of that. To be honest, Dylan missed Connor beyond belief. Way beyond levels he ever assumed he’d miss Connor, and it shocked him more than it excited him. It disappointed him, made him feel shameful and hollow. If you wanted to hear from someone who had been the last to reply in a social environment, you had to respond and reinitiate the conversation, right? For some reason, Dylan hadn’t been able to do so in a few months. That’s why he felt guilty, and ashamed. He was the one who dropped the ball, on Connor’s toes practically. 

Sitting in the hotel room alone allowed him a ridiculous amount of thinking time, and tons of poor choices to pick between. 

Calling Connor in the middle of his day, a random Wednesday evening would probably throw him off and cause a decent amount of shock. He might assume something is wrong, or there’s something bad that’s happened to him. 

Texting Connor would probably pique his interests, and get him excited. As usual though, Connor would delay his timing on his response because he didn’t wanna seem too eager. 

Visiting Connor’s hotel room would absolutely without a doubt scare the shit out of him, and he thought it may have been the worst idea of the bunch. Although his heart strained to see Connor. 

So the moment that Dylan hit the little telephone logo on Connor’s contact page, he gasped at the realization of his decision. Being alone was a bad idea for him. Maybe he could change his loneliness, through this phone call. 

“Hello? Dylan?” Connor’s voice rang, and Dylan had to snap himself out of his head for a moment. Connor sounded perky, a little surprised or confused. The way he said Dylan’s name, had made strings pull and blood pump fast through Dylan’s entire body. His fingertips were pulsating, and he decided to use them to brush his hair back and self soothe.

Dylan cleared his throat, not realizing he was crying until a tear drop fell onto his dimly lit phone screen. He hasn’t cried since the last time he felt this low, this alone. Realistically, he wouldn’t be this low if he had never betrayed Connor or Mitch. 

“Yeah, hey, hi, it’s uh, hey,” Dylan stammers, clear tears in his tone. His voice cracked, for fucks sake. He wasn’t good for hiding shit, and he wasn’t going to try now. This helped assure him that visiting Dylan’s hotel room would have absolutely only made this experience worse. 

“You okay? I mean, you called me but, what’s up?” Connor was feeling strange, after hearing Dylan’s pained voice. A half of him cared so deeply. One half of Connor was rubbing his back already, holding his hand, showing all the ways he could be there and support Dylan in a painful situation. The other half.. was looking away. Cracking jokes about it with Draisiatl later, shrugging it off, explaining what he’d witnessed Mitch through text and them reminiscing about the brutal way that Dylan had betrayed them, and deserved this sort of pain in a sick and twisted way. That’s because Connor still loved Dylan, but in a way that made Connor so hateful towards him, too. Unlike Dylan, Connor hid his feelings well when speaking, so he didn’t make any of these feelings evident when he spoke. 

“I’ve spent hours, days - months, it’s been months. I haven’t seen you or Mitch, not your faces in front of mine. I haven’t spoken with either of you. I just — I just left. That’s it, that’s something that I did do. For some reason, I’ve discussed every other scenario, every other solution, every other different path of the conversation, every other route to the way that night happened, I spent hours with a therapist. Talking about it like it could have been that way. Like I could have behaved differently, spoken differently, sometimes as if I did do it differently, tha-that night.” Dylan rambled, for what seemed like years, already. Out of breath rambling, too. What seemed like something he was going to say would kill him if he hadn’t gotten it out immediately, in that singular breath of air. Between cracking of his voice, the gasps between sentences and the pausing among certain words... Connor realized that this was the explanation. *The* explanation for all the pain that was sprinkled among the three men. Himself, Dylan and Mitch. The night that they all spent in Dylan’s apartment. In his bedroom, trying to help him handle an emotional situation, minus the alcohol. 

“Dylan, are you sure that now is the time you want to do this? Is this really the way you want to do this, this is the way you want to say this?” Connor had to press pause. The explanation so far seemed to be extremely emotionally involved, and he understood the ins and outs of face-to-face confrontation. He knew how terrifying it could be at times, how hard it could be to say such things to another breathing and responsive human being in front of you. He just didn’t know if Dylan was really prepared and all in for the entire conversation, both parts of it. 

“I wanted.. I needed-I needed to reach out and hold your hand that night. I wanted to hold you, I wanted to hold Mitch, I-I needed to have you both there. I couldn’t be there, I couldn’t stay. Not another night, I-I couldn’t put you through that pain, through what happened to me, what I did, I can never forgive myself for.” Dylan sounded so heartbroken as they got into the details of what happened. His voice was shattered, a whole huge pane of glasses breaking into thousands of tiny little shards. Dangerous shards.

“I slapped Mitch, I hit him. I hit the beautiful friend that I adored, I still adore. I hit the closest friend I’ve had, that wasn’t on my own team, of-of course, and I knowingly took my open hand and hit him. As if that-that wasn’t enough, I shoved you so hard, so fast, I shoved you and you clobbered heads with-with Mitch and you fell, you got hurt.” Dylan’s voice was barely a whisper as he replaying the series of events, and he closed his eyes. His hand shook tremendously as he held the phone, the phone that was swiped with tears that had fallen and spit that had flung from his bright and pigmented pink lips. Nothing brought him more pain than to replay the evening as it had occurred, to confess his wrongdoings aloud to another being. To one of the people he hurt, someone included in the traumatizing evening. 

“Okay, okay, I-I don’t know that I need you to really, to divulge in the details, really Dyl.” Connor stammered, and he rubbed at his forehead. His mind replaying it in motion picture form as Dylan described it, it hurt to see the way things occurred for him just as badly. 

“I was terrified, Davo. I was so scared. You didn’t do anything, Mitchy didn’t do anything at all. It wasn’t your fault, and-and if anything comes from this, please understand... please just know, just understand one thing. You two did nothing wrong, and none of it was your fault. I just had no control. I was drugged, I really-really thought that you were out to get me, I thought the worst. I didn’t see your faces the right way, I-I just, I just saw red. I saw a fight for my life, I saw a-a-a scenario in which I had to retaliate physically to protect my future, my life. I thought in that evening, I thought it was you guys, you were the reason I had been suffering the drugs, I thought you were the ones-the ones who..” Dylan trailed off, the wetness of tears over his lips becoming audible in his tone. He was barely holding the phone, letting it balance on his few fingertips that held it.

“You were drugged that night?” Connor began, his eyes wide with shock now. Never in his life did he expect that to be the situation, that to be the explanation for the way Dylan treated them.

“The grabbing, the shoving, the yelling, the fighting that was, you were drugged? Did you go to a doctor, did-did they tell you what you were drugged you with?” Connor stammered, his heart sunk. Dylan hadn’t released a secret rage on him and Mitch, Dylan hadn’t intended on hurting Connor or Mitch. Dylan wasn’t internally homophobic, and he wasn’t insane. Dylan had been drugged. Dylan was fighting because he was under the assumption that it was his life that he was fighting for. It made a lot more sense to Connor, what happened that night between the three of them. What didn’t make sense was why. 

“It.. I got tested, the next morning. I didn’t remember it, the altercations and all. I just saw angry texts from so many people. Leon, Auston, Patrick, I saw their texts and figured out I’d done something bad. It came back as uh, as PCP. It was dropped into my drink, it was a cranberry spritzer and the little salt on-on the glass was what I thought I tasted, even after I licked it clean.” Dylan cleared his throat a few times while explaining the drugging part of it. It broke his confidence to discuss the ways in which his body was violated, was taken control of by a drug, by a ruthless individual who intended on harming him. Shame, was what washed over him as he digressed. 

“PCP?! It didn’t fucking kill you? Isn’t that shit literally heroin, like knockoff heroin? Stromer, holy shit!” Connor gasped when Dylan broke the news, and he sat back into the headrest of the hotel bedding. His eyes were wide, his face went white with the overwhelming disbelief and his mouth was gaped to the floor, practically.

“I-I drank so much water, so many bottles that night as a-a reaction to the salty flavor, apparently I-I diluted my own ass.” Dylan laughed a little in gratitude to his bodily instinct that night. He was laughing in some hope that it eased some of Connor’s oblivious shock and anxiety. 

“Dyl, we had no fucking idea. For so long, we thought you just lost your mind. We thought you secretly hated us, were internally homophobic, literally thought of so many other wrong reasons.” Connor’s voice was raised, his tone spoke of disbelief but in a way that expressed how poorly he was judging his previous ability to reason on a situation. “Dylan, I’m so fucking sorry.” Connor sighed out, and he closed his eyes. He rubbed at his forehead, knowing that he had plenty of wrinkles from the tasking sport that was hockey, and all the drama he’d dealt with since that night. 

“No no, no, nooo, you-you’re not apologizing to me. I said some disgusting things Connor, I hurt you, I hurt Mitch, and you both didn’t deserve that.” Dylan refused to take the sympathy. So far, he hadn’t admitted in therapy that his actions afflicted among the two men were not of his own decision making, or intentions and that he wasn’t to blame for them. 

“Dyl, you were hurt. You were suffering. You were drugged, you literally had no control over your body. You couldn’t control yourself at all, like when you can’t have sex with someone because-cause they’re drunk and it impairs their ability to function, it’s the same thing, Dylan, oh my god, please, please don’t bother apologizing I already forgive you,” Connor had the turn to ramble on. It was his place to inform Dylan about his feelings after his new findings. He had the chance now to pick the better half, to console Dylan and feeling his feelings help assure him for his emotions. He had the chance to care and develop a new understanding, and console Dylan for this.

“Are you.. are you sure? Are you serious?” Dylan stammered out, barely able to believe the bliss that came with the forgiveness. He let a deep breath out and sucked it back in, chuckling softly in the loss of words he had towards the reaction. 

“Yes, yes literally a thousand times, and absolutely and 100%, oh my god. Dylan, I have to tell Mitch, did you tell him because, because he needs to know and he’d forgive you too, this makes a new understanding.” Connor had to assure him, just in the way he pictured it. He opened his iMessage app, and prepared to spam Mitch until he took note of the emergency. Sending a text that read /Dylan was drugged that night./ was the easiest way to open the interests of Mitch, he figured. 

“I didn’t, I-I just, I worked the courage up in my insanity of my own loneliness to just call, I didn’t even think too much about it other than the instinct that I owed you an apology and explanation.” Dylan jumbled, and he laughed again at the way Connor was switching his tone and energy. Laughed about the way that Mitch would text or call him, asking to forgive him for the way he acted. 

“Dylan, I’m texting him now to get his attention. God, I wish I’d fucking known! It makes me feel absolutely ignorant and moronic for not being able to guess that as one of the possibilities.” Connor groaned, ashamed of his reasoning and processing he’d done in regards to the whole mess. 

“Connor, I still... Connor, I love you.” Dylan instantaneously worked the courage up on pure instant importance of the moment. 50%/50%.

“Oh, you know already that I love you too. You know I never stopped loving you. You know I didn’t give up on the thought, I didn’t even drink about it. Mitchy is calling me, okay? I’ll give you a text later, maybe I can come and visit.” Connor was basically wrapping the conversation up to say goodbye, and he was trying to leave some comfort and kindness for Dylan to gnaw on while he was gone.

“Oh, uh, wait what?” Dylan sniffled, and wiped at his cheeks with the sleeves of his hoodie and tried to clean himself up. He was coming to terms now with the fact that Connor still loved him. Connor said it too, and they were going to be fine now. He had to take a second to realize just how beautifully the situation and relationship had turned itself around. 

“Yeah Dyl, I still love you. You’re amazing Stromer, and I’m sorry you suffered but you have been going to a therapist and you’re totally gonna survive this. You’ll come out stronger for it. I gotta call Marns though, he’s totally freaked out at this. I’ll call you later, and text you with updates, okay?” Connor was waving, prepared to end the call. 

“Oh okay, thank you, yeah, thank you so much, Davo.” Dylan smiled and gave a small wave in return, as the little call ending noise played. 

He dropped the phone on his bed, and he shook his head for a moment before using both hands to push his hair back. He silently chuckled at the way the conversation happened. Enthusiastic about the way things were looking for his near future, and the relationships he had with Connor and Mitch. Now he was in shock, but a good shock, that encouraged his blood to continue to pump and his lungs to expand and sink as a reaction of turnaround his future had a chance for. One of the other paths, the other routes, the other choices and outcomes was finally happening. He could not be more blissful at the way things were going now.


End file.
